Houston often prides itself as a technological leader. Our NASA scientists and astronauts are bar none above the Earth, and our oil and gas engineers have unlocked untold wealth under the depths of the ocean. Where we fall short, however, is curb-side on garbage day, where we still mostly just haul trash to landfills. It is wasteful, expensive and polluting.

So we're particularly excited to hear news from New York City yesterday that Houston was awarded a $1 million prize from Bloomberg Philanthropies' Mayors Challenge for our "One Bin for All" plan. Online voters also chose Houston as the "fan favorite," netting our city another $50,000.

Under the plan, Houston will build a single stream recycling center that allows folks to put all their recyclables into one bin, rather than having to sort through gross garbage. Making it that much easier should ideally raise recycling rates to around 75 percent, far above Houston's current 14 percent.

While the center won't be completed for a few years, Houston shouldn't hesitate to expand the recycling program we have now.